


under the blue sky that watches you love

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, M/M, POV Arthur Pendragon, POV Second Person, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 13:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15413796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: In the end, you’re the one who falls first.





	under the blue sky that watches you love

In the end, you’re the one who falls first.

You watch Merlin weep over his dead friend and wonder if he would ever weep over you some day. Do you matter to him? Would your death mean anything to this beautiful boy?

He is subdued on the ride back to Camelot. You’re sure he misses his mother already, and William. Morgana and Gwen keep their distance, choosing to let him mourn by himself, but you who know what it is to grieve alone can’t keep away. You spur your horse to canter beside his, and in a stupid gesture grab his hand. You hold it all the way back to the citadel.

He silently clutches onto you like you’re his lifeline, and he doesn’t let go.

You observe him for the week it takes for him to smile again, leaning against door jambs and shirking your princely duties while he potters around attempting to be competent. Your eyes follow the tuft of hair on the back of his head that sticks up just over the muted red of his scarf. If he notices, he says nothing.

He touches you one morning while he’s dressing you — he takes your hand in both of his and raises it to his face in a caress as his fingers slide down to clutch your wrist and feel your thundering pulse.

“You wouldn’t do it unless I did,” he whispers, and you want to kiss him but you don’t.

You’re barely an adult. You don’t know what it’s like to live, even though you’ve gone on patrols and fought battles and had men bleed out in your arms. You don’t know what it’s like to love, so fiercely that you would raze the world. Is that what your father lost? Is that why he razed the world? There was a girl you once thought you’d adored when you were fourteen, the daughter of a chambermaid. You’d thought you’d give up your claim to an entire kingdom for her. She’d shied away from you when you’d told her, and then she’d stopped coming to the castle.

This boy, younger than you, is just a peasant with the worst luck. He didn’t even want to be around you. He hated you when he first met you, and it isn’t as if you’re forcing him to stay, he can quit and run off and separate his world from yours whenever he likes. Why doesn’t he?

“You’re burnt into my heart,” he promises, when you’re dying in your bed and he thinks you can’t hear him. More the fool him, his voice is the only thing that keeps you in this world.

“Will you mourn me?” you plead behind your scorching eyelids, as he drags your hand up so you can feel your imprint in his chest.

He saves you somehow.

“Don’t you wish you’d never met me?” you ask, kissing him hard.

“Every day,” he answers, grinning.

Two boys sit on the edge of the world, legs swinging.


End file.
